Summa summae S. Thomae, Tomus III

Unbelievers, or deists, are those who acknowledge a supreme being, that is, the true God, but deny that he revealed anything to men, and therefore regard the Christian Religion, with its mysteries, as a human fabrication. They will, however, be led by reason alone in matters that concern God, themselves, or others; and they acknowledge it as the one rule and judge of truth and life in all things.

Hence they pass into various inventions. Some hold that the rational soul is material, and therefore deny its immortality; these are called Materialists; others acknowledge the rational soul to be spiritual and immortal. Some deny divine providence over human affairs, and that God punishes the wicked or rewards the good; others think the opposite. Some reckon justice and injustice to be mere words, and place the supreme rule in their own advantage; others subject the rational creature to certain duties toward God and its equals, according to the dictate of reason. Nor is it any wonder if they are thus torn apart among themselves; for since, as I said, they hold reason alone as their leader and rule, each one forges his own system at the nod of his own reason.

Against this most pestilential error, subversive of all religion and gaining strength in these times, very many and most learned writings have appeared, in which its various systems are effectively assailed and the error utterly routed. But since I aim at brevity, for the benefit of studious youth, I think I have sufficiently accomplished my task if I have invincibly proved that the Christian Religion is divine, revealed and instituted by God. For this being granted, it plainly follows that all the things which it proposes to be believed, such as the mysteries of the Most Holy (it continues on p. 26).

Trinity and of the Incarnation, divine providence over human affairs, the immortality of the soul, the laws of morals, original sin, the eternity of punishments, the resurrection of the dead, the sacraments, etc., are true, and that to them a certain and undoubted faith must be given, notwithstanding their incomprehensibility; for God can neither be deceived nor deceive, as the deists themselves concede; and thus all their fabrications and sophisms vanish. And since these men listen to reason alone, I shall assail them also by reason alone, setting forth the principal motives of credibility of the Christian Religion, against which no one can stand, unless he extinguish within himself the light of human reason.

I argue, therefore, as follows. Reason persuades, indeed compels — unless it be wholly inverted and disordered — to acknowledge as true, revealed and instituted by God, that religion which, first, the prophets foretold long beforehand; secondly, which its author and his coworkers alike confirmed by the prophecies fulfilled and by most manifest miracles; finally, thirdly, which by the power of God alone was born, grew up, and was spread through the whole world against all the laws of human prudence. Now this is the Christian Religion. Therefore. — The major they cannot deny; for the three arguments assigned are the most evident proofs of divinity. Therefore only the minor needs to be proved. Whence it will be demonstrated in the following articles.

[Although reason alone can find the motives of credibility of the Christian Religion, proofs of this kind also belong to faith, as defined by the Vatican Synod thus decreeing: « If anyone shall say that divine revelation cannot be made credible by external signs, and that therefore men ought to be moved to faith by internal experience alone, or by private inspiration of each one: let him be anathema. »]

[I say 1°, with St. Thomas, 2ae 2ae, q. 171, a. 1 : « Prophecy consists first and principally in cognition,. namely, that prophets know things distant and remote from human knowledge... Prophecy secondarily consists in speech, insofar as prophets announce to others, for their edification, the things they know by divine instruction, according to Isa., XXI, 10 : What I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared unto you. » Prophecy comes from two Greek words, προ, before, and φημί, I speak, and signifies in general an announcement made beforehand of an event. It is commonly defined thus : « A sure presentiment and prediction of some event which could not have been foreknown from natural causes. » Or more narrowly : « The manifestation of a future thing hidden from creatures. » From this notion of prophecy it is clear that three conditions are required for it to be truly and properly such, namely : 1° that it be a sure prediction, not conjectural ; 2° that it be a prediction of a future contingent thing, which accordingly can be known neither by art nor by any natural science whatever ; 3° that it be so determinate that the event is not accommodated to the prophecy, but rather the prophecy determines the event : that is, that it not be so vague, obscure, and equivocal as to fit any event whatsoever, and its application not arbitrary ; so that prophecy, which is a true miracle, supplies its own proof.

I say 2° : Prophecy is possible.

This is against the ancients and the more recent authors who denied the possibility of prophecy. Among the ancients were, on the testimony of Cicero¹, the Colophonian and Epicurus. The latter had no other reason for rejecting all divination than that he did not admit that mankind was of concern to the gods. Such was also the judgment of Carneades, as the same Cicero asserts². Among the more recent, Spinoza and the Socinians deny to God himself the faculty of foreseeing future things. Finally, all rationalists now deny that man can receive a prophetic spirit from God.

Proof. by reason. The possibility of prophecy reduces to these two questions : first, whether God can foreknow things future ; second, supposing the foreknowledge of things future, whether.

God can manifest them to man. But both of these are possible. Therefore.

Proof. of the first part, minor. The first is not only possible but necessary. For in God there is omniscience, and therefore foreknowledge, which is included in perfect and infinite science. If God did not have this foreknowledge, he would not be infinitely perfect under this respect, and consequently would not be God. And this knowledge in God is not properly foreknowledge, but simply knowledge. This is proved by St. Thomas, Iª p., q. 14, a. 13, o : « Since God knows all things, not only those which actually exist, but also those which are in his own power or in the creature's, and since some of these are contingent as to their future occurrence, it follows that God knows future contingents... Now God knows all contingents, not only as they are in their causes, but also as each of them actually is in itself. And although contingents come into actual existence successively, God does not know contingents successively in their being, as we do, but simultaneously, because his knowledge is measured by eternity, as is also his being. And eternity, existing whole and at once, embraces all time. Hence all things which are in time are present to God from eternity, not only by the reason that he has the notions of things present within himself, as some say, but because his gaze is directed from eternity upon all things as they stand in their presentiality. Hence it is manifest that contingents are infallibly known by God, inasmuch as they are subject to the divine sight according to their presentiality ; and yet they remain future contingents in comparison with their proximate causes. » Therefore.

It is confirmed by the manifold testimonies of Scripture, of which the following may suffice to cite. Heb., IV, 13 : All things are naked and open to his eyes. Ps., cxxxviii, 3 and 4 : You have understood my thoughts from afar... you have foreseen all my ways. Wis., VIII, 8 : She knows the signs and wonders before they come to pass, and the events of times and ages. The prophecies recorded in the Scriptures, which were certainly fulfilled even in the smallest particulars, demonstrate this possibility evidently from the fact itself.

Proof. of the second part, minor. If God could not manifest future things to man, the impediment would evidently stand only on the side of man, who would not be capable of such communication. But this incapacity cannot be admitted. Therefore. — Proof. of the minor. Man learns from man the things he does not know, and among these are many that learned men, aided by the natural light alone, foresaw as about to arise from their causes. But if it should please God, man can be taught by him no less, indeed much more, in the extraordinary way of inspiration, that is, of interior illumination whereby future contingents, naturally hidden, are opened up to him. Therefore.

It is confirmed by the consent of the human race; for it has always been the persuasion of men that some have received divine communications concerning things to come. Thence, among the pagans, oracles, divinations, auguries, and magical arts.]

[I answer: affirmative.

Proof. Holy Scripture, which most frequently invokes prophecies as proof of the truth of revelation. Christ himself says, John, v, 39: Search the Scriptures, for you think that in them you have life everlasting. And they are they that testify of me. So that he might prove to the disciples going to the town called Emmaus that all things that had happened of him had come to pass by the divine will, Luke, XXIV, 27, beginning from Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things that were concerning him. St. Peter, after narrating the prodigious transfiguration of Christ, in which the heavenly Father proclaimed him his own Son with an audible voice, adds, to refute more fully the unbelief of the Jews, 2 Pet., I, 19: And we have a firmer prophetic word, whereunto you do well to attend, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn. St. Paul expounded to the Jews the heavenly doctrine, Acts, XXVIII, 23, testifying the kingdom of God and persuading them concerning Jesus out of the law of Moses and the prophets. Therefore.

Proof. by a second argument. Prophecy properly so called cannot be except from God; for, as the Angelic Doctor says, 2a 2ae, q. 171, a. 2, c., « the principle of those things that pertain to supernatural knowledge, which are made manifest through prophecy, is God himself, who is not seen by the prophets through essence. » Therefore, whenever a true prophecy is had as confirmed by the event, so often an unavoidable argument arises for divine and supernatural revelation. — The antecedent follows from the very notion of prophecy itself. — The consequent therefore cannot be denied.

It is confirmed from this, that a true prophecy is a true miracle, and below it will be proved that a miracle demonstrates the truth of the doctrine in whose favor it is wrought.

Proof. thirdly from the Fathers, of whom it will suffice to cite one and another. Tertullian, Apologet., c. 20: « A fitting testimony of divinity, I think, is the truth of divination. Hence among us faith in things to come also is safe, because they were foretold along with those things which are daily proved. » Splendid is this passage of Augustine, serm. 43 de Script., n. 5. Having recounted out of St. Peter the transfiguration of Christ, and having cited these words: And we have a more certain prophetic word, he says: « That voice sounded from heaven, and the prophetic word is more certain... Who among us does not marvel that, the voice having been brought down from heaven, the Apostle said the prophetic word was more certain? He said indeed more certain: more certain, not better, not truer. For that voice from heaven was as true as the prophetic word, as good, as useful. What then is more certain, except that in which the hearer is more confirmed? Why this? Because there are unbelieving men who so disparage Christ as to say that he did what he did by magical arts... But the prophets were before: I do not say before that voice, but before the flesh of Christ. Christ was not yet when he sent the prophets... Behold why the Apostle Peter says: We have a more certain prophetic word. A voice from heaven, whereby the faithful are admonished; a prophetic word, whereby the unbelieving are convinced. » Therefore.]

The prophecies of the Christian religion are contained in the books of Moses and of the other prophets.

1° God spoke to Moses, and revealed to him the Jewish religion, as is clear from Exod., XIX, 3-6. Further, if the Jewish religion is true and revealed, then Christ is the Messiah. Therefore the Christian religion, which he instituted, and of which the Jewish religion was the foundation, is true and revealed.

2° In the books of Moses and the prophets are foretold the Messiah, his birth, the place, the time of his birth, his life, doctrine, works, miracles, passion, death, resurrection and other things pertaining to this, the calling of the nations, the rejection of the Jews, the abolition of the temple and of sacrifice, the substitution of a new law and a new sacrifice, etc. And yet all these things have been verified exactly of Jesus of Nazareth, the author of the Christian law. Therefore he himself is the Messiah; therefore his religion is true and divine.

Proof of the minor. 1° Our Christ was born after the scepter had been taken away from Judah, according to the prophecy of Jacob, Genes., XLIX, 10; at the time fixed in the 70 weeks of Daniel, Daniel, IX, 24-27; before the destruction of the second temple, as Aggaeus, II, 8-10, and Malachias, III, 1 had foretold. — 2° He was born in Bethlehem, as had been foretold, Mich., V, 2; of the tribe of Judah and the family of David, Isa., XI, 1 and 10; of a virgin, Isa., VII, 14. — 3° His coming was preceded by him who would prepare his ways, Malach., III, 1. — 4° He worked miracles, as Isaias, LXI, 1 seqq. had foretold. — 5° He was sold for thirty pieces of silver, with which the potter’s field was bought, as Zacharias, XI, 12 foretold. — 6° He was spat upon and struck in the face, Isa., L, 6. — 7° He was scourged, Psal. XXXIV, 15 and CXXXVII, 3. — 8° His hands and feet were pierced, Psal. XXI, 17. — 9° He was crucified among thieves, Isa., LII, 12. His garments were divided, cast by lot for the robe, Psal. XXI, 19. Hanging on the cross, he was given gall to drink, Psal., LXVII, 22. As he was dying, the sun suffered an eclipse,

Amos, VIII, 9; he rose again, Psal. III, 6;¹ he ascended into heaven, Psal. LXVII, 34; he sent the Holy Spirit, Ioel, II, 28. — 10° He called the nations through the Apostles to his religion, and destroyed idolatry, as had been foretold, Genes., XXII, 17 et 18; Isa., II, 2, 3 et 18; XIX, 19; XLIX, 6 seqq.; Zach., XII, 2, and elsewhere. — 11° He substituted a new priesthood for the Levitical, a new law for the Mosaic law, and finally rejected the Jews, as foretold everywhere in the prophets, Isai., Ierem., Ose., Amos, Mich.

Seek all these things set out more fully in our previous Work, tract. de Incarn., dissert. II, a. 3.

What will the deist say to these things? Will he say that Moses is a teller of fables and an impostor, who fraudulently sold false and invented things to the Israelites as true?

Sed contra : 1° Moses calls the Israelites themselves eyewitnesses of the things he narrates. He narrates the plagues of Egypt, harmless to the Israelites looking on. He narrates that they passed unharmed through the Red Sea, while the Egyptians were drowned in it. He narrates that manna was given them from heaven for forty years, and that during that time their garments were not worn out. He narrates that the law was given them by God on Mount Sinai amid lightnings and thunders. He narrates that he drew forth a fountain from the rock for their relief, and that Dathan and Abiron, while they looked on, were swallowed alive into the earth, as he had foretold; he subjects them to a most harsh law, even under pain of death in certain matters. He narrates that he ordered twenty-five thousand men to be killed by the Levites for idolatry, and many other things. If therefore all these things are false, and Moses fraudulently sold them to the Israelites as true, it must be that Moses was foolish, to hope that he could persuade the Israelites that they had seen what they had not seen, and thereby subject them to a most harsh law; and that the Israelites were in like manner foolish, to believe that they had seen what they had not seen, and thereby subject themselves to a most harsh law.

2° In memory of the deeds and prodigies which Moses narrates, feasts and sacrifices were then instituted which are still scrupulously observed by the Jews. But who would believe that a whole nation instituted feasts and sacrifices for events not certainly known to it, or fabulous, and observed them so religiously through so many centuries.

3° Moses not only narrates deeds and prodigies, but foretells many future things that depend solely on the will of God, and which were fulfilled: likewise the other Prophets. But it is not for an impostor, nor for any other man whatsoever, to predict future things that depend solely on the will of God.

Perhaps he will reply that neither Moses nor the prophets ever existed; or, if they existed, that the books attributed to them are not their own, but were fabricated after the birth of Christianity by some impostor.

Sed contra : 1° It is as certain that Moses and the prophets existed and wrote the things that are attributed to them, as it is certain that Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar, Cicero, Virgil existed, and that the writings attributed to them are their own. Of these latter no one doubts, on account of the constant tradition, against which nothing can be opposed. Therefore neither may one doubt about the former.

Likewise, it is as certain that Moses and the Prophets existed, and that the works inscribed with their names were written by them, as it is certain that the Jewish nation existed and now exists, which always venerated and venerates them as Prophets and saints, and has always kept their writings, as divine, with the greatest diligence, and keeps them. But that the Jewish nation existed before the rise of Christianity is known to the whole world.

2° Aristeus, one of the legates of Ptolemy to Eleazar, high priest of the Jews, whose book exists in the Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. VII, Josephus and Philo, both Jews, relate that the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek by the 70 Interpreters, under Ptolemy king of Egypt, two hundred years before Christ was born. Likewise profane historians, Cicero, Phlegon, Tacitus, Suetonius, Sallustius, Quintus Curtius, make mention of the law, the temple and the wars of the Jews.

3° By what art could this impostor have persuaded the Jews that this was the history and law of their nation handed down by God, of which they had never heard anything, and which contains many things disgraceful to them and commands most harsh things, and could he have obtained from them so scrupulous an observance of this most harsh law, such as they profess even now? Whoever had attempted this would without doubt have been regarded by the Jews as a fanatic.

4° If the Old Testament is the work of a recent impostor, the same must be said of the New, since the latter is nothing but an explanation and fulfillment of the former, and Christ often appeals the Jews to Moses and to the prophets of the Old Testament.

5° Let the deists say who this impostor was, of what condition, stock and religion: whether a Jew, a Samaritan, or a Christian? If a Jew, he would have obtained nothing from the Samaritans, the bitterest enemies of the Jews. Likewise, if a Samaritan, with respect to the Jews. Moreover, neither would have inserted in these books things so ignominious to the Jewish and Samaritan nation, namely their crimes, ingratitudes, idolatries and punishments. If a Christian, how would he have been acceptable to the Jews and Samaritans, alike the bitterest enemies of the Christians?

6° Likewise, let them say at what time, in what year, in what part of the world this impostor appeared; whom he first deceived; how the Jews, Samaritans, and Christians dispersed through the whole world were at once and together furnished with copies of all these books, in every language, Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic, Greek, as they were at the birth of Christianity. To these things the deists fall silent. Let them acknowledge therefore their fictions, and that they betray themselves as impostors, while they plead the cause of a fictitious impostor.

Let there remain unmoved, therefore, that the books of Moses and the prophets are their genuine works, that the prophecies which they contain concerning the Christian religion and its author are divine and revealed, and consequently that the Christian religion is true, divine and revealed; for there is no more efficacious argument for the truth of any doctrine than prophecies concerning its author and its truth, since no one but God, or one inspired by the divine Spirit, can long beforehand predict future things, which depend solely on the will of God, with all their circumstances, according to that of Isa., XLI, 23 : Announce the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that you are gods.

Obi. 1° that paganism also had its oracles.

I answer. 1° No oracles ever, whether from the priests of idols, or from pythonesses, or from demons through idols, issued forth concerning a future event that depended solely on the will of God, like the oracles of Christianity; but they were either concerning recent events already accomplished elsewhere, or which they themselves were about to do, or concerning natural futures which they predicted conjecturally from circumstances; and therefore concerning these Cicero himself, book II de Divinat., says that they were « partly false, partly true by chance. »

2° The oracles that looked to the future were ambiguous, such that whatever had happened, they were verified. Such was the oracle of Apollo of Delphi given to Croesus, king of Lydia, that « if he crossed the river Halys, he would destroy a great kingdom. » Whether his own, or another’s? this remained to be divined. Likewise this one of the same Apollo given to Pyrrhus consulting about the outcome of the war against the Romans : « I say that you, descendant of Aeacus, can conquer the Romans, » which signifies both that the Greeks can be conquered by the Romans and that the Romans can be conquered by the Greeks.

3° These oracles of paganism ceased at the birth of Christ and the advance of Christianity. Suidas, s.v. Augustus, Suetonius, in the Octavius, Nicephorus, lib. I, c. 17, relate that Apollo of Delphi, after having long remained mute, was finally compelled to answer Caesar Augustus consulting him thus :

« Me a Hebrew boy, God himself ruling the gods, commands to yield my seat, and to return sad beneath the earth. Depart therefore henceforth in silence from our altars. »

It is known that Apollo of Daphne in the suburb of Antioch long fell silent in like manner, notwithstanding the repeated sacrifices of Julian the Apostate, and finally answered him that the cause of his silence was certain dead men buried in a nearby place. These however were the holy martyrs, among whom St. Babylas.

Tertullian in the Apolog. affirms that any Christian meeting one first can render the demons mute and cast them out of bodies; and he challenges the Romans to make the experiment, consenting that this Christian be condemned to death if he should fail. Likewise Lactantius, lib. de vera Sapientia, relates that every Christian by the sign of the cross renders the demons mute and expels them from bodies.

I insist. The sibylline verses have always been most celebrated, not only among the Gentiles, but also among the ancient Fathers of the Church, in which many future things are predicted. Moreover the pagans had their oracles. Therefore there were true prophecies also among them.

I answer. that the sibylline oracles have long been held in low esteem by the learned. Even if, however, the authenticity of those verses be admitted, and that the virginity of the Sibyls was rewarded with the gift of prophecy by God, as St. Jerome says, contra Iovin., unbelief finds in them no support, since many monuments of ancient tradition are contained in them, many prophecies concerning Christ and his religion, as can be seen in digr. 2 at the end of dissert. II in tract. de incarnat., in our greater Work. Therefore the holy Fathers cited the verses of the Sibyls with praise, because they saw in them religion rather confirmed than weakened. As to the other prophecies and oracles of the pagans, although there are not lacking those who attribute all of them to the frauds of priests, whose very many arts of deceiving Herodotus himself reports, lib. 5, 6, 7 and 8, yet theologians commonly judge that not all those are to be ascribed to human arts, but that many also were produced by demons. Whence St. Cyprian, lib. de Idol. vanit., has thus : « These spirits therefore lurk beneath statues and images; these inspire the breasts of seers with their breath, and work oracles. » Although true prophecy is proper to God alone, nevertheless, considering the intelligence and nature of demons, they can know and foretell many things which can strongly excite the admiration of men. Thus they can predict evils of which they themselves will be the authors, manifest at almost the same moment what is done in a distant region, conjecture from present things certain ones soon to come, as has already been said. Since, however, the event even of things soon to come often depends on the free determination of men, and on the concourse of other things, which cannot certainly be foreseen from natural causes, hence the oracles of demons concerning these events were partly false, partly true by chance, commonly ambiguous and turning every way, so that they could be drawn even into contrary senses. The falsity of the oracles was attested, in Theodoret, by Porphyry himself, saying : « Asked about many things, they are found liars oftentimes. » They cannot therefore, except by the greatest folly and audacity, be compared to our prophecies by the oracles of the heathen, which Celsus did, whom Spinoza and other unbelievers followed. Let them show themselves any falsity, however small, in our prophecies : which they will in no way be able to accomplish; for it is evidently demonstrated that all oracles were fulfilled in Christ and in the Church. Hence augurs and soothsayers have existed indeed among all nations, but prophets nowhere, except in the people of God.

Obi. 2° with Rousseau : That prophecy may be a certain argument of truth, it would be required 1° that he who heard the prophecy be also witness of the event, 2° that it be certain that what was predicted did not happen by chance. But these do not concur in the same prophecy. Therefore.

I answer to the 1st: on this way of philosophizing nothing done by others can be believed, nothing said, unless it be heard with one’s own ears. Therefore there will no longer be any historical faith, no certainty. Moreover, although the things Rousseau requires are not found joined in every prophecy, yet it happens in many cases. Thus the resurrection of Christ had been foretold to the Apostles, who afterwards saw him alive with their own eyes.

I answer to the 2nd: there is not here question of one or another deed predicted through ambiguous words, or of one or another prophecy announced through conjectures or natural causes, but of the prophets, who succeeded one another through many centuries, who although far apart among themselves in age, regions and manners, wonderfully agreed in predicting events, not only free and contingent, but depending uniquely on God, whose places, times, and even the smallest individual circumstances they foretold, as we saw above. But who would be so senseless as to say that everything responded by chance to oracles so manifest?

Obi. 3° : Prophecies are not the work of God alone, if a natural faculty of prophesying be granted. But distinguished philosophers taught that this faculty is granted, as Aristotle, Plutarch, etc. Therefore.

I answer. I deny the minor. Those testimonies of the Gentiles prove nothing else than the common persuasion of all that divination exists; since they did not know its true origin, they took refuge in uncertain suppositions of this kind. For neither from reason nor from experience can any argument be brought forward by which this opinion is proved. We speak of prophecies properly so called, not of certain presensions arising from natural causes, whose sufficient reasons are already contained in things present or past.

Obi. 4° : A prophecy cannot be judged from the event, 1° if it can be fulfilled by the event without being true, as is said Deut., XIII, 1-3 : If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet... and foretell a sign and a wonder, and it come to pass that which he spoke, and he say to thee : Let us go and follow strange gods..., thou shalt not hear the words of this prophet; 2° if the event does not always follow a prophecy made in the name of God, as Isaias foretold to Ezechias death for the morrow, Jonas the overthrow of Nineve. 3° An event, announced only after a long time, cannot be an argument of truth; which happens in countless prophecies. Therefore.

I answer to the 1st. Since a prophecy that contradicts certain truth is necessarily false, it follows that the one treated of in Deuteronomy cannot be held a true and proper prophecy. Other interpreters think those words contain an impossible hypothesis, to express the matter more forcibly, which hypotheses are not rarely used in common speech, as the Apostle, to the Galatians, I, 8 : Though an angel from heaven evangelize to you otherwise than we have evangelized to you, let him be anathema.

Finally nothing prevents understanding those words of a prophet who, after he had uttered true prophecies, afterwards fallen into idolatry, abused his authority to corrupt the faith of the people.

I answer to the 2nd. Those predictions were not prophecies uttered in confirmation of any doctrine, but threats made, which were for the most part conditional.

I answer to the 3rd. A prophecy to be fulfilled long after could not be an argument of truth to those living at the time of the prophet, but to those who saw the event. Thus the prophecies concerning the Messiah proved nothing to the Jews living in the time of Isaias and Jeremias, but to those who were to be convinced from the prophecies in the time of the Messiah. Moreover the prophets always predicted even things soon to be, that by the events of the earlier prophecies they might win faith for the later ones.

Obi. 5° : The prophecies that foretell the last calamity of the Jews contain many things that were not fulfilled in the destruction of the city of Jerusalem. Therefore they prove nothing.

I answer. the objection speaks of the prophecy read in Matth., XXIV, Marc., XIII and Luc., XXI, in which, according to the common opinion of interpreters, Christ spoke at once of the consummation of the world, of which the extreme calamities of the Jewish nation exhibit the prelude. Yet it is not difficult to distinguish between the two, especially in the series of the narration related by St. Mark. 1° The destruction of the city of Jerusalem is treated from v. 1 up to 24. 2° The overthrow of the whole world from v. 24 to 27. Both events having been foretold, Christ answers this question of the disciples : Tell us when these things shall be. And indeed returning at v. 28 to the first event, he announces it as near at v. 30 : This generation shall not pass, until all these things be done. But as to the time of the final consummation of the world, he says at v. 32 that it pertains to the hidden judgments of God : But of that day or hour no man knoweth.]

You will ask 1° what a miracle is.

[A miracle is named from wondering, and therefore by force of the word signifies a thing worthy of admiration. Moreover, admiration is caused by anything wonderful, and arises chiefly in a fourfold case: 1° Something is wonderful from the greatness of a thing or the art which shines forth in it. Hence those seven ancient works of the world, wrought with such industry and so often celebrated in song, were called wonders and celebrated as miracles. Miracles taken in this widest sense do not concern us.

2° That is called wonderful which, since it has a cause exceeding the capacity of the perceiver, moves his admiration and impels him to inquire into this cause. Such is, e. g., the aurora borealis, which has not yet been conclusively explained by physicists. 3° That is called wonderful which happens rarely. Deeds of this kind are often called miracles, but are not, because they do not exceed the order of the whole of nature. 4° A work that exceeds human faculty is wonderful, and is called a miracle in a wide sense, although it does not surpass the natural power of certain higher agents, namely angels and even demons. Of this below, comparatively to the miracle properly so called, which is soon to be defined.

Miracle is rejected: 1° by Atheists, who deny that worldly things have a superior cause existing outside themselves. 2° by Deists, who do not admit that God has care of this world, maintaining that God cannot influence the world. At the same time, with providence, the possibility of miracles is denied.

3° Pantheists, who teach that all things in the world come to pass by absolute necessity. 4° Among theists those rationalists who, out of hatred of the Christian religion, devise various antitheses whereby they assail it, and rise up against miracles, that they may remove from the midst the argument drawn from them in favor of this religion. 5° Neoplatonists, who said that he who had learned the theurgic art has no need of the help of God, by which he can sometimes disturb the laws of nature.]

I answer. A miracle is an effect of the divine omnipotence against the common laws and above all the forces of the whole of nature, or, as St. Thomas says, beside the order of the whole of nature¹. Hence neither angels, nor demons, nor any creature whatsoever can by its own power work a true miracle, but God alone; who, since in creating nature he freely established its laws for it, he alone can derogate from them at a nod. Nor does it follow from this that God is changed, as Spinoza foolishly feigns; for he does not change his will by working a miracle, but does in time what he decreed from eternity to do.

When therefore angels or saints are said to work miracles, the sense is not that they have habitually inherent in themselves a permanent virtue of working miracles². For since the principle of working miracles extends to all things that can be done supernaturally, it is nothing other than the divine omnipotence, which cannot be communicated to any creature. And moreover it would follow that they could work miracles whenever they wished, which is false. It is clear from the question of the Apostles, Matt., XVII, 18: Why could not we cast him out? namely the demon. Likewise Eliseus could not raise the widow's son by the application of his staff. Likewise Paul asked that the sting of the flesh be removed from him, and did not obtain it. The sense therefore is that at their petition, or their word, or their contact with something belonging to them, God works the miracle, using those things as instruments.

You will ask 2° whether a miracle is possible.

I answer. Affirmatively.

1° It is of faith. The Vatican Council, session III, constitution Dei Filius, thus defined: « If anyone shall say that miracles cannot be wrought, and that therefore all narratives concerning them, even those contained in Sacred Scripture, must be banished among fables or myths...; let him be anathema. »

It is proved by reason. A miracle is possible if it repugns neither on the part of God the creator nor on the part of created nature. But it repugns on neither side. Therefore.

It is proved as to the first part. A miracle would be impossible on the part of God if his power either were not extended so far, or were bound by an order already established among created things. But neither can be admitted. Therefore. — Proof of the first part of the minor. He who can do more can do less, in the same genus. But more is to produce all things from nothing than to make an exception, that is, a miracle. Less is it to stop the course of the sun or to shed darkness upon it in daytime than to imprint upon it perpetual motion; less is it to restore lost life to a man than to impart it to or preserve it in infinite thousands of men daily: which facts have been miraculous. Therefore. — Proof of the second part of the minor. The power of God would be bound by an established order, either because this order had been made necessary by creation, or because God, on account of his immutability, could not change it. But neither can be admitted. Not the first. For only that is truly necessary which, existence being supposed, is essentially such. But the order of the world is not essentially such, but merely contingent, because it is conceived otherwise by us, and God freely instituted it, seeing that God is absolutely free in his external operations. Therefore. Not the second. For although a miracle derogates from natural laws, it imports no mutation in God. For when God from eternity resolved to create the world and decreed to give it such general laws, he at the same time resolved to derogate from these laws in foreseen and determined cases, to manifest his glory: whence, as Augustine says most excellently, lib. I Confess., c. 4, « changing his works, he changes not his counsel. » Therefore. — Add that, if we wished to speak properly,

God governs not genera and species, which are nothing but abstract ideas, and as such are immutable, but governs individuals, which alone are real; nor does he govern them by universal laws, which likewise are nothing but in our concept, arising thence, that we perceive God to govern in uniform manner the individuals of any genus whatever, but with a peculiar will he governs individual things one by one: whence, with respect to each single thing, whether he keep it within its accustomed mode, or treat it otherwise, to obtain the end proposed, in either case he commits his eternal decree to execution, and there is ever verified what he said of himself, Malach., I, 6: I am the Lord, and I change not.

It is proved as to the second part, namely that a miracle does not repugn on the part of created nature. For 1° nature depends on God as clay on the potter, and indeed still more absolutely, because God fashioned the world not only out of preexisting matter but freely created matter itself. 2° Matter, as being essentially inert and idle, is plainly indifferent to motion or rest, to this or that figure and disposition of parts. It can therefore take this or that mode, put on this or that form, receive this or that disposition of parts, and so be accommodated to a miracle. Therefore.

You will ask 3° whether miracles have the power of proving the truth of revelation.

I answer. Affirmatively, with St. Thomas, 2. 2ae, q. 178, a. 2, c: Miracles are wrought « for the confirmation of the truths preached. »

It is of faith, defined by the Vatican Council, session III, constitution Dei Filius: « If anyone shall say... that neither by miracles is the divine origin of the Christian religion rightly proved; let him be anathema. »

It is proved 1° from Sacred Scripture. Since supernatural doctrine has no intrinsic evidence, that its extrinsic evidence or credibility may appear, Scripture is full of motives of this kind. And indeed 1° that God alone is the author of a miracle the Apostles testify, that they may show the force and value of a miracle. Thus St. Peter says, Acts, I, 12 [III, 12]: Ye men of Israel, why wonder ye at this, or look upon us, as if by our own strength or power we had made this man to walk? Therefore a miracle is always the work of God. — 2° That it is a testimony of truth appears, because the B. V. Mary received it as a pledge of the truth announced to her. For the angel says, Luc., I, 36: And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age. Christ the Lord proves himself the Messiah by legitimate testimony, namely a miracle, Ioann., I, 51: Amen, amen I say to you, you shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. The same Lord Jesus, on the very day on which he ascended into heaven, having commanded the Apostles to go into the whole world and preach the Gospel, adds, Marc., XVI, 17: And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name they shall cast out devils, etc.

The Apostles too invoke miracles to confirm the divinity of Christ. Thus St. Peter brings forward the miracle of the transfiguration, 2 Pet., I, 18: And this voice we heard brought from heaven, when we were with him in the mount. The apologetic character of miracles shines forth Ioann., 30 and 31: Many other signs also Jesus did... But these things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. The Apostle Paul, Rom., XV, 19, shows his mission to be legitimate in virtue of signs and wonders, and 2 Cor., XII, 12, says again: The signs of my apostolate have been wrought upon you in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty deeds. It is certain, therefore, that a miracle by its nature is apt to add strength to truth, not indeed intrinsic, but extrinsic, and that this confirmation through prodigies is sufficient.

It is proved 2° from the nature of a miracle. The Angelic Doctor says, ibid.: « True miracles cannot be wrought except by divine power. » But God is truth itself, nor can he ever either give countenance to error and falsehood, or set the seal of his omnipotence and authority to confirm error sown by others. Therefore a miracle is necessarily connected with truth.

It is proved 3° from the consensus of men. 1° A universal and invincible propensity ought to be held as a firm argument of truth. But men are carried by universal and invincible propensity to judge that miracles are the resplendent signs of the divine will. Hence all peoples have been persuaded that miracles are as it were the voices of God. Hence I. J. Rousseau himself, after confessing that the question « Whether God can work miracles, » if it were not impious, ought to be called absurd, adds that he does not wish to see miracles, lest he should go mad with astonishment. — 2° This is shown by fact. For that has an ineluctable power of proof to which yielded the pertinacious obstinacy of Pharaoh and his magicians, so that they cried out, Exod., VIII, 19: This is the finger of God; to which yielded the superstition of the gentiles grown old through so many centuries, to which yielded the whole world, embracing the faith of Christ. — 3° It is confirmed by this, that all who attempted to spread abroad a religion, even a false one, that they might win faith and authority for it, brought forward certain deeds either supposititious or mendaciously interpreted as miraculous. Miracles therefore have the power of demonstrating truth.

If you object that the demons themselves can by the force of their natural power do certain things which seem supernatural to us, this difficulty will be solved below.

You will ask 4° whether a miracle as such can be known with certainty.

I answer. Affirmatively.

It is of faith. The Vatican Council, constitution Dei Filius, thus defined: « If anyone shall say... that miracles can never certainly be known...; let him be anathema. »

It is proved by reason. That a miracle may be known with certainty as such, two things are required, namely first that some effect be produced exceeding the powers and order of nature; secondly, that it be established that this effect exceeds the powers and order of nature. But both can be had. The first can be known by sense experience, that is empirically, or through the testimony of others, as the other sensible facts are known: and not only probably, but even with certainty; unless the force of the report of senses and the testimony of men be at once denied, in which case all faith, even in the natural order, would have to be denied. The second will appear through a serious examination instituted, when the effect is weighed by comparison with its causes, and it appears that in it the powers of nature have been surpassed and an extraordinary causality was present. By this reason is attained the historical and philosophical truth of the miracle. The former is obtained most easily, as of the other natural facts. For a miracle, insofar as it is a sensible fact, is no less obvious to the senses than a natural fact. The second truth, or philosophical certainty, we reach equally. For testimony is given not concerning the supernatural mode in which the effect is produced, but concerning the effect itself, as regards its physical substance. Where such an effect is had which evidently could not proceed from a created cause, we conclude at once with metaphysical certainty that its cause is God omnipotent, acting outside the accustomed order and derogating from the laws established by himself. Therefore.

That we may pronounce some fact miraculous, it is not necessary that we discern all the forces of nature. It is true indeed that no one, however learned and perspicacious, knows all the forces of nature; but any man, even untrained, led by experience, can see how far nature cannot reach. And that an example may be put in the concrete (from which adversaries always flee, that they may hide themselves within the recesses of abstractions), although we confess that we do not know how far the most noble art of medicine raises itself, yet we know certainly that no physician by the nod of mere will, or by a spoken word, heals any sick man, consolidates a broken bone, recalls a dead man to life, and one indeed already buried four days and stinking; if these things came to pass, who would doubt of the miracle? Would not even the deists and rationalists themselves, abandoning all their abstract and contorted reasonings, proclaim a miracle? We might therefore here imitate him too, who, to solve the arguments propounded to him against motion, began to walk.

And thus is answered the difficulty opposed by Renan, namely that a miracle can never be certain unless a society of learned men, chemists and investigators of nature investigated the fact and pronounced judgment on the reality of the miracle, because otherwise it is impossible to recognize directly divine causality. How ineptly he demands this, is evident per se.]

You will ask 5° whether all things which appear or are said to be miracles are true and properly so-called miracles.

I answer. Negatively³. For some are not true facts, but fantastic, by which man is deluded, so that there seems to him to be something which is not. Some are indeed true facts, or true things, but have not the character of true miracle, insofar as they are wrought by the power of certain natural causes unknown to us, and therefore are not called miracles simply, but only relatively to us. These two things demons can do, and magicians by the aid of demons. Such were the miracles of the magicians in Egypt, and will be the miracles of Antichrist, of which the Apostle says 2 Thessal., II, 9, that his coming will be according to the operation of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders. But God alone, as I said, works true miracles which surpass every power of the whole of nature.

You will ask 6° how any miracle can be discerned to have been wrought by divine power, and not by the power of a nature unknown to us, and therefore to be a true miracle.

I answer. There is a threefold rule. As to the first, I suppose that there exist certain effects which, by the common and constant consent of all men of any time and nation, are reckoned to surpass all the forces of the whole of nature and to be truly miraculous, such is, e. g., the resurrection of a dead man. From whatsoever place, at whatsoever time a truly dead man rise again, as was the case, e. g., of Lazarus, there is no one who does not reckon it a true and properly so-called miracle; whence that saying of the man born blind, Ioann., IX, 32 and 33: From the beginning of the world it hath not been heard that anyone opened the eyes of one born blind. Unless this man were of God, he could not do anything. This supposed, I say: When there is such an effect as is judged miraculous by the common and constant consent of all men of any time and nation, it is to be held with certainty to be a true miracle; because this consent, so constant and so universal of all men of any time and nation, the infinite goodness, wisdom and veracity of God being considered, cannot be false. Otherwise God, who is the author of common sense and reason, would either deceive us, or permit us to be deceived, without our being able by any means to discern the error and be delivered from it; which repugns his infinite goodness, wisdom and veracity, especially if there be error about some dogma.

As to the second rule, I suppose that true miracles are divine attestations of some truth to be introduced or confirmed. This supposed, I say: A miracle wrought in the name of God the creator in assertion of some dogma can never be false, nor lead into error; because it repugns the infinite goodness, wisdom and veracity of God 1° that he permit his name to be interposed to substitute a false miracle for a true one; 2° that he suffer his name to be brought in as witness of a lie, whence men would be necessarily and invincibly led into error against that which they owe to God and which is necessary for their salvation; for men have nothing which they can oppose to a miracle wrought in the name of God the creator in attestation of some dogma.

Third rule. True miracles are discerned from the doctrine and morals of those who work them, and from the singular and permanent effects which follow from these miracles: namely if those who work miracles hand on doctrine honorable to God, conformable to right reason, leading to good morals and favorable to social life; if the same accurately fashion their life and morals according to the norm of this doctrine; finally, if from these miracles there permanently follow worship of the supreme deity, the overthrow of the worship of demons, reformation of morals conformed to right reason, concord of citizens and social life. For it is impossible that miracles of this kind be wrought with a demon as author, to his own ruin. This rule is taken from Origen, lib. I contra Celsum.

You will ask 7° whence it can be discerned that a miraculous fact related is not supposititious and fabulous.

I answer. It is then to be judged true and not supposititious, 1° when it is an external fact, open to eyes or ears; 2° when it is a fact wrought before many seeing or hearing witnesses attending, and maturely weighing all the circumstances of the fact; 3° when in memory of this fact public monuments were then erected and obligations imposed, which endure. From these conditions, I say, placed together, the truth of the fact is certainly elicited.

§ II

True miracles have been wrought in confirmation of the Christian Religion.

I have already spoken of the miracles of Moses in confirmation of the law handed to him by God, which was the foundation of the Evangelical law.

The miracles wrought by Christ and the Apostles in confirmation of the Christian Religion are contained in the books of the New Testament, namely the four Gospels of SS. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the Epistles of SS. Paul, Jude, James and John, and in the Acts of the Apostles written by St. Luke.

Three things must here be made good by us against unbelievers: first, that these books are genuine writings of the Apostles whose names they bear; secondly, that the facts related are true; thirdly, that they are true miracles.

FIRST

The books of the New Testament are not supposititious.

That these books are not supposititious, but proper to those whose names they bear, is clear: 1° From public faith and constant tradition, which has always adjudged them to their authors, no one ever gainsaying, whether of the Jews, or of the pagans, or of the heretics, although it concerned them most of all to deny it. To such public faith and constant tradition sure credence is given, unless a conclusive reason prove the contrary, which unbelievers lack.

2° Let the deists say, if these books are not the Apostles', who fabricated them, and at what time: while the Apostles lived, or after their death? Not while they themselves lived, otherwise they would certainly have cried out against the fraud. Not after their death; for there exist the works of SS. Ignatius, Clement, Polycarp, who lived with the Apostles, likewise the works of SS. Justin and Irenaeus, who were disciples of the first disciples of the Apostles: and all these attribute the books of the New Testament to the Apostles, and so all in succession down to us.

Likewise let them say, by what art this fabricator could persuade the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Thessalonians and Philippians, that the Epistles bearing the name of St. Paul had been written by him and directed to them, of which they had never heard anything?

3° These books contain a Religion than which none is more sublime, none purer, none holier, none more austere. Therefore they are not the work of any impostor. Likewise, they contain truths and mysteries which exceed the grasp of human reason, and which therefore could not have been attained or devised by it without revelation, such as the mysteries of the SS. Trinity and Incarnation, original sin, the resurrection of the dead, etc.

SECOND

The facts related are true.

It is clear 1° because otherwise they could easily and openly have been convicted of falsehood. For they relate these things in the middle of Jerusalem, where very many of them were wrought, and a few years after their occurrence, so that they would have had as many witnesses of falsehood as there still then were men surviving from the death of Christ. For Matthew wrote his Gospel about nine years after the death of Christ, then the others.

2° Because unto asserting the truth of the things they relate they undergo death. But no one is so foolish as to undergo death to assert a fact which he knows to be false, unless he hope for something better after death. But what better could impostors hope for after death?

3° Very many of these facts were acknowledged as true by the enemies themselves of the Christian Religion, Jews and pagans. First of all, as many of the Jews and pagans as embraced the Christian Religion acknowledged all these things undoubtedly as true. These however are and have been innumerable, of every race and condition. Suetonius, concerning the emperor Claudius, cap. 44, narrates that by edict of this emperor the Jews who followed the Religion of Christ were driven from Rome; which fact is read in the Acts Apost., XVIII, 1 [2]. Tacitus, Annal., lib. XV, c. 44, relates that Christ underwent death under Pontius Pilate, governor of Judaea, Tiberius reigning, as is related in the Gospel. Celsus, than whom there was no bitterer adversary of the Christian Religion, acknowledges that Christ healed the lame and the blind. Behold his words in Origen, who attacked him, lib. II contr. Cels.: « Ye believed him to be the Son of God because he healed the lame and the blind. » Similarly Julian the Apostate, in Cyril, lib. VI, confesses that Christ healed the lame and the blind, and freed the energumens. Phlegon, who flourished in the court of the emperor Hadrian about the middle of the second century, in Hist. Olympiad., lib. XIII, relates the eclipse of the sun and the earthquake which occurred at the dying of Christ, as we read Matt., XXVII, 51; Luc., XXIII, 45. Thallus, another pagan older than Phlegon, lib. III Histor. Syriac., narrates that this eclipse occurred in the year 18 of the reign of Tiberius, in which Christ suffered. These two testimonies of Phlegon and Thallus joined together pressed most heavily Origen, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, St. Justin and others against Celsus, Porphyry and Julian, who fell silent before these things.

4° The truth of these facts is clear from the rule laid down in the preceding §. For these facts are external, open to eyes and ears. They were wrought before many seeing or hearing, attentively and maturely weighing all the circumstances. Finally, in memory of them public monuments were instituted, namely solemn feasts, which from the beginning even until now endure, and obligations imposed, namely of the evangelical law. These assert the truth of the facts, as has been said.

THIRD

These facts are true miracles.

It is proved from the threefold rule laid down in the first § and from other considerations.

1° Among those facts several are which, according to the constant and universal consent of all men, surpass the powers of the whole of nature, and are held as true miracles, such as the raising of Lazarus and of the daughter of Jairus, the resurrection of Christ itself, the multiplication of five loaves wherewith five thousand men are filled, the mission of the Holy Spirit, the sudden transmutation of the disciples into other men, the gift of tongues and of miracles granted to them, etc. These, I say, and the like are held as true miracles according to the common consent of all men. Therefore they are such; for the common consent of all men cannot be false, as has been said.

2° All these miracles were wrought by Christ and the Apostles in the name of God, in attestation of the dogmas of the Christian Religion. Therefore they cannot be false, nor lead into error, as the second rule declares.

3° Christ and the Apostles and their successors who wrought these miracles handed on doctrine worthy of God, conformable to right reason, leading to good morals and favorable to social life. They fashioned their life and morals most exactly according to the norm of this doctrine, and from their miracles innumerable men of all nations became and remain followers of their doctrine, imitators of their life, religious worshippers of the supreme deity, concordant among themselves in charity, enemies and conquerors of demons. But it is impossible, as has been said in the third rule, that these miracles were wrought with a demon as author, to the destruction of his own dominion.

4° As many of the Jews and pagans as gave their name to the Christian Religion acknowledged these facts as true miracles. Among those however were men of the greatest erudition and most perspicacious genius, such as St. Justin Martyr, Lactantius, Arnobius, Minucius Felix, Quadratus, Aristides, Melito, Athenagoras, etc. These, I say, and others, only after exploring the truth of the miracles by accurate examination, as the importance of the matter required, stripped off the ancient religion favoring the senses, that they might put on the new one flatly repugnant to the senses, and for it very many underwent death. Who further of sound mind would not give credence to witnesses of this kind rather than to certain yesterday's unbelievers who assail our miracles only out of depravity of heart, supported by no reason? Add that the pagan emperors themselves acknowledged and venerated the truth of the miracles of Christ. Moved by these, Tiberius brought Christ before the senate, that he might be enrolled among the number of the gods; which the senate refused, because he was not the author of this counsel. So relates Tertull. in the Apology offered to the Roman senate itself. Lampridius, a pagan author, in the Life of Alexander Severus, narrates that the emperor Hadrian erected several temples without idols, with this mind, that he would consecrate those temples to Christ, but was deterred from his purpose, lest, if he did so, all the other temples would be abandoned and all would embrace the religion of Christ, as the oracles had answered. The same Lampridius relates again, ibid., that Alexander Severus had in his palace an oratory in which he adored Christ and offered sacrifices to him.

5° Not only do the Apostles narrate Christ's miracles as true, and offer themselves to death and torments to assert their truth, but moreover they testify that they received from him the power to work true miracles. Either, then, they worked true miracles, or they did not. If they did, that suffices for us; if they did not, then they publicly presented themselves of their own accord as impostors. Who would believe it? Unless you suppose them to have been completely out of their minds.

I pass over innumerable other miracles that the successors of the Apostles and holy men, invoking the name of God or of Christ, at any time and everywhere wrought in confirmation of the Christian Religion. Many are reported by SS. Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, the ecclesiastical annals, and other approved authors. Likewise no one is declared a saint unless it be most invincibly proved that he worked true miracles. If you deny all these things, no true history will stand, and everything will have to be reckoned among fables.

6° Finally, if anyone obstinately deny true miracles in confirmation of the Christian Religion, let him acknowledge the greatest miracle of all: that this religion, which we shall describe in the next article, spread through the whole world without miracles. Thus, after Augustine, the Author argues, Contra Gent. I, c. 6 : « Since it is established, he says, that the Roman empire and the whole world, filled with so many powerful men, philosophers, and orators, at first resisting the doctrine of Christ, was afterwards converted to it: I ask whether this change was wrought by the power of signs and prodigies, away from the rites of antiquity and a religion long observed, into this new and unheard-of religion? If you shall confess that the world was drawn to this persuasion by the force of miracles, which it could by no means resist, you will have to confess that this Religion proceeded from God, the author of miracles, who alone works great wonders. But if on the other hand you deny that the world was summoned to receive this faith by any miracles, then in denying miracles you thrust upon yourself an immense miracle. For what could be said to be more wonderful than that the Roman empire and all paganism should have embraced of its own accord, deserting the rites of their fathers, with no signs seen nor wondrous works displayed, that Religion which they were so bitterly assailing and striving to subvert, and have been so constant in retaining it? »

The deists object miracles wrought by the Gentiles, and thence infer that the truth of the Christian Religion cannot be proved from miracles. Thus, they say, the magicians in Egypt turned their staffs into serpents and produced frogs; thus Vespasian healed a blind man and a lame man; thus Apollonius of Tyana, among many miracles, raised a dead girl to life.

I answer. 1° I deny that any true miracle was ever wrought by the Gentiles: both because none was wrought in the name of God the creator, which is the token of a true miracle; and because those that are reported either do not surpass the powers of nature, or are false and fabricated.

As for the prodigies of the magicians of Egypt, many hold them to have been mere delusions of the senses. Others, and more commonly, with St. Thomas, judge that they were indeed real frogs and real serpents, not such as the magicians produced above all the powers of all nature, but such as they effected from seeds dispersed in the elements, by applying natural active virtue to passive principles, as can be done in those things that arise from putrefaction, as St. Thomas teaches⁴, after Augustine, or else exhibited serpents carried away from elsewhere, which seems more probable. And when it came to the fourth prodigy, the idle art of the magicians came to a stand, and they were compelled to say of Moses's miracles, Exod., VIII, 19 : This is the finger of God?

What is reported about Vespasian rests on no witness, but on uncertain rumor. Moreover, the lame man and the blind man whom he is said to have healed were not, in the judgment of physicians, naturally incurable, as Tacitus himself relates, Hist. lib. IV, n. 81.

As for Apollonius, one Philostratus more than a hundred years after Apollonius's death wrote his history stuffed with fables, and reports this raising of a certain girl from uncertain rumors, without any testimony; nor does it appear from his narrative that the girl was truly dead. Then, that Apollonius was held an impostor is proved from this, that he had no follower, and made no sect.

I answer. 2°. Given that God, for causes known to himself, might work some miracle in paganism, he would never work it in confirmation of idolatry; for that repugns his goodness, wisdom, and truthfulness, as we said above. But the miracles of Christ, of the Apostles and of their successors were wrought, upon invocation of the name of God, in confirmation of the divinity of Christ, of his mission, and of the religion instituted by him.

§ III

The prophecies and promises of Christ fulfilled.

1° Christ promised that he would rise on the third day, Ioann., II, 19 ; Matth., XX, 19, and elsewhere. 2° He promised that after death he would turn the nations to himself and reject the Jews, Ioann., XII, 32, 40 ; Matth., VIII, 11 and 12, and XXIII, 1 seqq., and Luc. XIII, 24 seqq. 3° He promised to the Apostles to make them fishers of men, Matth., IV, 19 ; Marc., I, 17 ; Luc., V, 10 ; to send them the Holy Spirit, Ioann., XV, 26 ; to grant them the gift of wisdom, fortitude, and tongues, Luc., XXI, 15 ; Ioann., XV, 26 and 27, and XVI, 13. Finally he promised to be with them until the consummation of the age, Matth., XXVIII, 20. None but God alone can make good all these things. Christ made them good : he rose on the third day, he turned the nations to himself and rejected the Jews, these things are plain before our eyes; he made the Apostles fishers of men, he sent them the Holy Spirit. Finally he was with them, is with them, will be with them, that is, with his indefectible Church, until the consummation of the age. Therefore Christ is God. Therefore his Religion is true and divine.

[« That we might be able to fulfill our duty of embracing the true faith and of persevering in it steadfastly, God instituted the Church through His only-begotten Son, and furnished His institution with manifest notes, so that it could be recognized by all as the guardian and teacher of the revealed word. For to the Catholic Church alone belong all those things which have been disposed by God in so many and so marvelous ways for the evident credibility of the Christian faith. Nay, the Church of itself, by reason of its admirable propagation, its eminent holiness and its inexhaustible fruitfulness in all good things, by reason of its catholic unity and its invincible stability, is a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefragable testimony of its own divine legation. » Synod. Vaticana, constit. Dei Filius, cap. 3, de Fide.]

That the whole force of this argument may be well perceived, several things are to be observed.

1° This Religion spread very quickly. For Paul, at Coloss., I, 6, says that already in his time the faith of Christ was growing and bearing fruit in the whole world. Justin Martyr, who flourished at the beginning of the second century, in his Dialogue with Trypho says there is no race of men among whom it is not worshiped. Likewise Irenaeus, book I, c. 3; Tertull., book against the Jews, c. 7; and Pliny the Younger, who also flourished at the beginning of the second century, book X, epist. 97, to Trajan: « Not only cities, he says, but villages and fields have been overrun by the contagion of that superstition (the Christian). »

2° It was introduced and propagated through a few fishermen, plebeian men, unskilled, ignorant, poor and contemptible: not, like other religions, by the power of arms, the favor of magnates, or the enticements of riches, pleasures and honors, nor by force of human eloquence; but solely by the power and wisdom of Christ, according to that saying of the Apostle, I Cor., I, 27 and 28: The foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong; and the base things of the world, and things despised, hath God chosen, and those things that are not, that is, which are reputed as nothing, to destroy those things that are, that is, which are held as greatest.

3° This doctrine of the faith is such that it would seem to men rather folly than wisdom: namely, that a man driven to the cross amid outrages and dead should be worshiped as true God; that he rose again; that there is no other name in which we must be saved than the name of this crucified man. Whence the Apostle, I Cor., I, 23 and 24: We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness; but to them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Such, I say, is this Religion and doctrine, whereby nothing conduces to earthly happiness; which teaches that the passions must be restrained, that honors, riches and pleasures must be despised; which inculcates nothing but tears, penance, mortification; which promises nothing in this world but perils, afflictions, persecutions, humiliations, torments, crosses.

4° Under the yoke of this Religion, apparently foolish, so hard and severe, these few contemptible fishermen brought into subjection not only the unlettered and simple, but most learned men: Dionysius, Clement, Irenaeus, Justin, Arnobius, Athenagoras, Lactantius, Tertullian, etc. Nor only common people, but princes themselves, kings, emperors.

5° Finally, this Religion and doctrine was propagated and grew amid persecutions, with princes and magistrates opposing it, philosophers contradicting it, the devil raging and resisting with every kind of torment; and the more it was assailed, the more it grew and prevailed, so that the blood of martyrs became the seed of Christians.

Who of sound mind, if he attends to these things, would not recognize that the Religion we have described, born, grown to maturity and propagated in this manner, is not an invention of human genius, but the work of almighty God. For it could never have come about that a doctrine so alien from human wisdom, so repugnant to the senses, so harsh and severe, should so quickly pervade the whole world, and should, amid the persecutions, torments and contradictions of men and demons, be received by princes and learned men, and that too through a few fishermen, poor and unskilled, unless God had wrought most efficaciously, both in those who preached it and in those who received it.

These things being posited, I recapitulate the argument made at the beginning of the dissertation. Reason persuades, nay compels, unless it be wholly inverted and disturbed, to acknowledge that this Religion is true, revealed and instituted by God: 1° that which the Prophets long before foretold; 2° which its author and its cooperators alike confirmed by prophecies fulfilled and by most evident miracles; 3° finally, which by divine power alone, against all the laws of human prudence, was born, grew to maturity and was propagated throughout the whole world. Now this is the Christian Religion. Therefore reason persuades, nay compels, unless it be inverted and disturbed, to acknowledge the Christian Religion to be true, revealed and instituted by God. — No one of sound mind can deny the major. — We have invincibly proved the minor. The conclusion therefore stands unshaken, and consequently it is necessary either that the deist send back the messenger to reason, or that he acknowledge the Christian Religion to be true and divine.